How to Lose Weight with the Zone Diet

By Candice Pardue

With so many choices in the diet world today, how do you know which diet is right for you? Let's take a look at the Zone Diet, a brief history and how the diet works to see if it will be the one that fits into your life, plans and schedule.

Brief History of the Zone Diet

The Zone Diet book was authored by Dr. Barry Sears and published in 1995, however, the diet concept is not a new one. During the fifth century BC, a Greek runner claimed that this type of diet (in confrontation with the vegetarian diet of many Greek athletes) contributed to his victories. Although the Zone Diet does make a claim to improve performancein athletics, there is little evidence that this is so. It will, however, help individuals to lose body fat by staying within the limited caloric ranges.

How the Zone Diet Works

By balancing caloric intake, the dieter can increase muscle mass and reduce body fat. The diet is based upon the schedule below:

Carbohydrates: 40% of your daily calories
Protein: 30% of your daily calories
Fat: 30% of your daily calories

By balancing these three areas of your diet, you can increase energy and lose weight.

What Types of Foods Can You Eat While on the Zone Diet?

You can eat essentially any foods as long as you pay attention to your percentages, and stay within the boundaries mentioned above. Creating a schedule of foods that would fit well into your percentages will help you to stay on track. Planning is everything when trying to accomplish weight loss.

What are the Advantages of the Zone Diet?

The advantages of the Zone Diet are clear. You can have flexibility in your diet without following rigid outlines, and still lose weight. It's a well balanced plan that will not deprive your body of its basic essentials. Often, diets that use deprivation as a method of losing weight, end up causing more harm than good. When your body goes without certain foods for so long, you'll begin to crave those foods, and end up overeating anyway. Your body is set up this way. It will let you know when you need a certain type of food, and will demand it!

What are the Disadvantages of the Zone Diet?

There are two main disadvantages of the Zone Diet. The first is obvious. You'll have to plan your meals and stick with the plan to be successful on the diet. This is probably the most difficult task with any diet plan. The second is the fact that you'll be taking in possibly more protein than you normally do, which can cause constipation. If this occurs, keep some Metamucil or similar fiber source around just in case. If you balance the diet with plenty of fruits, you shouldn't have too many problems with this.

The Zone Diet can help you to gain control of what and how much you eat, which is always a good thing.